Fluid heaters have a variety of uses in a variety of fields. Water heaters are particularly prevalent in the domestic consumer market and the service sector. Water heaters serve a variety of purposes in these roles; however, they are most frequently used for providing hot water via plumbing systems for use in cooking, beverage preparation, bathing, washing, cleaning, heating buildings, and so forth.
Traditionally, water heaters used in a plumbing/running water capacity are reservoir-style heaters that use a natural gas open flame heat source. The water is kept at a relatively constant temperature by sporadic heating. One drawback of this design is the limited capacity of the water reservoir which leads to the exhaustion of the hot water supply under heavy loads. Another drawback is the energy wasted in keeping the stored water at a desired high temperature. This problem is compounded further if a larger reservoir is chosen to avoid shortages under heavy loads. Thus, gas/reservoir water heaters can be both inefficient and insufficient unless subjected to a fairly constant and appropriately sized load.
As a result of the above-noted drawbacks of conventional heaters and increasing producer/consumer interest in “going green,” the market for on-demand heaters has expanded. On-demand heaters heat water for immediate consumption instead of storing water at a high temperature. Concurrent with this trend, there has been an increasing interest in water heaters that use other heat sources besides natural gas combustion. This shift in market paradigms has created a need for new heater designs to meet new demand and improve product offerings in the field of on-demand and alternative fuel heaters.
Fluid heaters employing an electrical radiation source, or lamp, as a heat source are currently available. In a typical design, the fluid flows through a conduit that is being irradiated by the lamps. The conduit absorbs heat and transfers it to the water therein. One common thread in these designs is that they are often not consumer friendly—particularly for unsophisticated residential and commercial users. For example, they may be bulky, complex, difficult to maintain, constructed with exotic parts, expensive, and/or designed for a heating capacity not suited to typical residential/commercial applications. Furthermore, many of these designs may be inefficient at delivering all of the heat produced to the fluid.
There remains a need in the art for a lamp heated water heater that is inexpensive, efficient, size-appropriate for residential/commercial use, and easy to maintain for any user.